Classics Books

CHAPTER I      "From Wimbleton to Wombleton is fifteen miles,      From Wombleton to Wimbleton is fifteen miles,      From Wombleton to Wimbleton,      From Wimbleton to Wombleton,      From Wombleton—to Wimbleton—is fif—teen miles!" The cheery singing ended abruptly with the collapse of the singer upon a particularly inviting... more...

CHAPTER I. BRIDE AND BRIDEGROOM ELECT. Firelight falling on soft velvet carpet, where white lily buds trail along azure ground, on chairs of white-polished wood that glitters like ivory, with puffy of seats of blue satin; on blue and gilt panelled walls; on a wonderfully carved oaken ceiling; on sweeping draperies of blue satin and white lace; on half a dozen lovely pictures; on an open piano; and last... more...

CHAPTER 1 "Until this moment I have never fully realised how great an ass a man can be. When I think that this morning I scurried through what might have been a decent breakfast, left my comfortable diggings, and was cooped up in a train for seven hours, that I am now driving in a pelting rain through, so far as I can see for the mist, what appears to be a howling wilderness, I ask myself if I am... more...

CHAPTER I. DOROTHY ARRIVES. "You may see her tonight," said Mrs. Sterling to her son Gilbert. "When does she arrive?" "At six-twenty this afternoon. They say, son, she is beautiful." "From what point of the compass does the lovely paragon come?" asked Sterling with a smile. "She has just graduated from some college in the North. Her father and mother went to be with... more...

Whenthe long grey lines came flooding upon Paris in the plain,We stood and drank of the last free air we never could taste again:They had led us back from the lost battle, to halt we knew not whereAnd stilled us; and our gaping guns were dumb with our despair.The grey tribes flowed for ever from the infinite lifeless landsAnd a Norman to a Breton spoke, his chin upon his hands.“There was an end to... more...

1. I meditate in my heart on that K.rish.na on whose left side is seated Râdhâ, on whose breast reclines Šrî (Lakshmî), and who enjoyed sport (with them) in V.rindâvana. 2. I, Sahajânanda.h Svâmî (afterwards called Svâmî-Nârâya.na), living at V.rittâlaya, write this Letter of instructions (or Book of directions) to all my followers scattered throughout various countries. 3. Let the two... more...

CAN reading be taught? is a question often asked, and partly for the reason, it may be, that so many readers who have gone through courses of vocal training in schools of elocution, or under private teachers, so frequently offend people of taste and culture by an extravagance of expression, by mimetic gesture, and by offensive mannerisms of various kinds. But a reasonable inference cannot be drawn from... more...

CHAPTER I. In a small house, in a back street, in the large manufacturing town of Cottonborough, the young wife of “Cobbler” Horn lay dying. It was the dusk of a wild evening in early winter; and the cruel cough, which could be heard every now and then, in the lulls of the wind, from the room upstairs, gave deepening emphasis to the sad fact that the youthful wife and mother—for such also she... more...

The Closed Door Opens In his aimless wanderings around Boston that night Wilson passed the girl twice, and each time, though he caught only a glimpse of her lithe form bent against the whipping rain, the merest sketch of her somber features, he was distinctly conscious of the impress of her personality. As she was absorbed by the voracious horde which shuffled interminably and inexplicably up and down... more...

THE BALCONY There is much of life passed on the balcony in a country where the summer unrolls in six moon-lengths, and where the nights have to come with a double endowment of vastness and splendor to compensate for the tedious, sun-parched days. And in that country the women love to sit and talk together of summer nights, on balconies, in their vague, loose, white garments,—men are not balcony... more...